History

Center City Opera Theater is now celebrating its 11th season. Since its founding by General & Artistic Director Andrew Kurtz, Center City Opera Theater (CCOT) has produced nearly three dozen operas. CCOT began its performing history at Centennial Hall on the Main Line of Philadelphia and moved into the Kimmel Center’s intimate 563-seat Perelman Theater in 2004. The company added its OPERA ENCOUNTERS, a series of staged operas performed with piano accompaniment in the Kimmel Center’s smaller 150-seat black-box theater Innovation Studio to help achieve two core parts of its mission: build new audiences for opera and provide opportunities for young professional singers to get major roles “under their belt” in a performance situation. The majority of OPERA ENCOUNTERS have sold out since they were added in 2005. Therefore, in order to increase our seating capacity while also lowering ticket prices, the 2009 OPERA ENCOUNTERS have been moved to the Ethical Society of Philadelphia on Rittenhouse Square. In September 2008, we launched our ConNEXTions project, which features world premiere stagings of new operas during the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

In June 2006, Center City Opera Theater’s third main-stage production in the Perelman Theater, La Boheme, revived its well-received production from 1999. In 2006/2007, Center City Opera Theater expanded to two main-stage productions, Tosca in November 2006 and the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Lowell Liebermann’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in June 2007, which was commissioned by Center City Opera Theater. The Opera Encore Series moved into the Kimmel Center’s black-box theater Innovation Studio, featuring operas based on great works of literature. As part of its 2006-07 Opera Encore Series, the Center City Opera Theater presented two regional premieres:Adamo’s Little Women and Floyd’s Of Mice and Men. Center City Opera Theater’s OPERAtunities in Education in-school program works with multiple partner schools in Philadelphia and surrounding areas. A separate Education Board of Directors runs this program, producing a curriculum that addresses national and local standards. All of our main-stage artists participate with classroom visits to our partner schools, as well as outreach events that are open to the general public. Artists are chosen not just for their abilities to perform, but also for their abilities to be an asset to our education program.

Center City Opera Theater maintains active relationships with the other major arts organizations such as the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and the Michener Museum. Center City Opera Theater’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata included curators from both PMA and Michener, who participated as members of the design team, as projected images drawn from art collections around the world were the primary scenic element of this production. Center City Opera Theater has achieved great critical success with all of its productions over the past eight years. The ability of Center City Opera Theater to advance careers of emerging theater professionals is best evidenced by the continuing accomplishments of its artists. Center City Opera Theater artists are now appearing or working on the stages of some of the world’s premier companies, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Baltimore Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, the Atlanta Symphony and Opera Company of Philadelphia